Welcome to the United States – a nation of 80-year-old bricklayers, burger-flippers, and Wal-Mart workers
By louisehartmann
Remember the days when people retired in their fifties and sixties? Or their seventies? That’s a distant memory today. In another sign of just how bad our nation is treating the working class – a new study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows that most Americans today will have to work until they’re 80 – just to have a chance at saving enough for retirement. The study found that the lowest fifth of Americans income-wise will have to work until they’re 84 years old to be able to retire.
The news isn’t much better for those who make roughly $31,000 a year either – they – on average – will not be able to retire until they are 76 years old. And in both cases – working that deep into old age will only give the average person a fifty-fifty chance at having enough money to live off of until they die. In 2009 – 17% of Americans older than age 65 were still grinding it out in the workforce. They say you can tell a lot about a nation by the way it treats its young and its elderly. And in that context, Republicans are trying to take food assistance off the table for poverty-stricken children – and trying to privatize Medicare for seniors.
Welcome to the United States – a nation of 80-year-old bricklayers, burger-flippers, and Wal-Mart workers.
Comments
#2
Does everyone see the Irony here?
The most Christian nation on earth is the most heartless and hateful!
The loudest who yell from the rooftops against the poor and those unfortunate to be on welfare and food stamps or unemployed, are fundamentalist Christians, and the more fundamentalist, the bigger the hate and heartlessness!
Not only do they want to get rid of Medicare, they now have their sights on Social Security! That's right, their next salvo - Privatize and get rid of social security!
Forget retiring! You work till you die!
That is the message from the hate filled angry fundamentalist Christian Right - only the Christ in Christian is nowhere to be seen in their churches on Sunday morning! Cause he was for the poor and the downtrodden! And their message to the poor and downtrodden – you work till you die! And if you are sick, too bad! And if you can’t find a job, tough!
Irony indeed!
#3
One can only hope that most of those working to death will be those same real American, evangelical Christians.
#4
Maybe the government thinks that if they "nanny-state" everything that they will be able to fix the immigration problem.
If we are not an attractive country then nobody will want to come.
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The U.S. is quickly becoming a nation to move away from, not move to, to make and have the "real" American dream of owning a home, having a good/safe job, staying healthy and happy. Older workers is fine if they are doing it because they want to, not need to. They will hold jobs that would go to a younger person who does need a job to support their family.
Everyone will continue to suffer both financially and health wise. Sick people will go to their job as cooks, waiters, supermarket workers, water treatment operators, nuke plant techs,etc. because they can't afford to take time off or to go to a Dr. Vicious cycle that effects all of us in some way.